2014

The New Year. 2014, year 31 in my little life. And how to begin it - to scrap this thing, maybe chronicle it in print form somehow - print it out and bind it and then delete it in its entirety from the web. Or to continue writing occasionally, upload a few pictures, remember to check on it every now and then and realize that the chronicle is here (if I can remember the password).

The tangible stuff is so good, though. To make a list and cross off items as they are finished is so tangibly fulfilling. I can make quick lists here and never come back to them and they are frozen in time unfinished. Wishes and wants and procrastination work really well together here online. Everything remains the same. You can't tear it up and throw it away.

There are so many things that I don't want to see written in my own hand, however. I don't want to look into a book and see a handwritten note to start walking at work. I want to cover some bases here, where it's not tangible. It's hidden. If I can tap in to fears and anxieties and assess them and hold them and squeeze them and let them go online, I think I should. I think I should write more often all together. Just write more, whether it  be on screen or on paper.

In 2014, I am likely going to have a baby. In seven days, I may find out what this baby in my belly is, girl or boy. Something within me says she's a girl, the lemon-sized ball in my belly. I can't sleep at night and I'm not entirely sure why... it's like I can't get into a comfortable position because I'm afraid I'm going to squish the poor thing. I can't seem to get enough oxygen either. And the peeing. They say that gets better, but I don't understand how when the lemon-sized ball in my belly is only going to grow and press more on my bladder. It might help if our bedroom wasn't in such a state. There are boxes of craft supplies, clothes, and junk everywhere. I have in my head that we'll get the room painted and I'll make curtains, we'll get a rug and new bedding. There will be room for a changing table and the baby's bed and maybe a rocker. Even though this room is smaller I'm glad that we switched rooms with the kids. At any rate (a slow rate), life is changing and morphing into something that will accommodate one more life, though it is uncomfortable now for me and the little one.

My Kale is morphing into this man - this man that I thought had hidden himself across town or had retreated into deep space or something - a grown man, a father, a patriarch, a brother, a husband, a lover, a friend. Any doubt I had is crumbling away like hanging shattered glass. I wish I was able to show the changes beginning in me as graciously as he has, but there is delicate and tremendous work going inside of me. On the one hand, I am building a baby. I wish I had done this before so that I could note the phases and the ups and the downs and know just what they mean... but I haven't. I don't know what the hell is going on in my head and within my body. It doesn't seem to be happening fast enough and some days I'm afraid it's not real at all. Then, in therapy I am delving into past "trauma" that feels like present-past whining and seeing that I simply didn't have a mother who could cope with my childhood anxieties. Her frustrations became my own and I live and breathe them today. I come out of there feeling like a raw nerve, coated in shame for being a whiny bitch and at the same time, exposed to reality - I'm strong enough to handle any of this, it's just I was never supported enough and never learned the skills with which to live a normal and happy life. Even writing about it feels degrading and self deprecating. Even so, while my body is going through a miraculous process, my heart and mind are being tapped open and aired out. I am indeed a raw nerve. And I am not gracious.

Meanwhile, there are two children ever in my care. There's this boy, you see, named Lynden. He is astonishing in his wit, intelligence, and grace. There's this girl named Genevieve. She is challenging in her need, exuberance, and love. I have sat back these last four years as each has entered school, as each has met their own set of challenges and has grown to be individually such astoundingly awesome little people. And as I have sat and watched, I have also picked up and carried and moved and prodded each little area of their lives as their mother... getting into this is tricky territory... I am their mother. Maybe that is all I need to say, there is not much to say that is necessary to prove it. I am Mama. ... I cannot wait to bear forth into this world a being that is equally a part of their fantastic father as they are. The world is not big enough for another Nickens. The three of them will turn this world upside-down.

Last night at the grocery store, Kale told me that I am a better mother than mine. I believe it. I hope to carry that forever for my children. Though my mother was no slouch, believe me. However, sainthood is not a given just because you bear children. I am learning that more and more everyday because of my own shortcomings and failures, witnessing the repeated failures of the woman who bore the children I call my own, and reflecting upon the dangers of the shortcomings of my own mother. I am not entering a sanctification process... I am becoming a woman, kid-tested, mother approved.